A common dictionary definition of trauma is “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience”. An overwhelming event may also be classified as trauma. We shall herein refer to any event which results in such an experience as a “traumatic event”. We shall herein refer to any circumstances which result in trauma as “traumatic circumstances”. Not all traumatic events leave an imprint which later has a disabling effect (such as PTSD). To the contrary, many perceived threatening events serve to strengthen animals or persons who go through such events. Trauma researchers such as Peter Levine (author of “In an Unspoken Voice”, ISBN #1556439431, which is herein incorporated by reference) and Robert Scaer (author of “The Trauma Spectrum”, ISBN #0393704661, which is herein incorporated by reference) list an abundance of research pointing to the difference between whether or not trauma results in disabling effects being determined largely by the difference between whether or not the trauma is “integrated” subsequent to the traumatic circumstance.
Within this document, traumatic memories will be considered not to be integrated if circumstances which trigger such memories result in an autonomic nervous system response which is experienced as partially or largely disabling by the person in which the response is happening (see Levine 2014, Trauma and Memory, Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past). Since traumatic memories are typically stored in implicit memory (the memory mechanism used to remember body sensations and movements, such as “how to balance while riding a bicycle”, or “how to throw a ball”) rather than explicit memory (the kind of symbolic memory used to remember stories and facts), traumatic memories are often not accessible through talk therapy. In recent years, body-centered therapeutic techniques such as Somatic Experiencing and The Alexander Technique have proved themselves valuable to therapists seeking to aid clients in integrating traumatic memories.
Some of the ways in which unintegrated trauma is partly disabling to an individual may be externally measured objectively, as well as being experienced subjectively internally by the individual with unresolved trauma. For example, research has shown that for a person with unintegrated trauma, a stressful event often results in such person's autonomic nervous system taking considerably longer to return to baseline levels of sympathetic nervous system activation and parasympathetic nervous system activation, compared with the time it takes the autonomic nervous system of a person without such unintegrated trauma to return to baseline levels after such a stressful event.
In this document, we shall refer to the time it takes the autonomic nervous system (ANS, composed of sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system) to return to within a predetermined tolerance of baseline levels after a given stressful event or series of events as the “re-settling time” for that event or series of events. Parameters such as heartrate and vagal tone (also called heart rate variability or HRV (which may be measured with or without correlation to measured respiration)) may be used as measures of activation of the central nervous system, and the term “re-settling time” may be applied to such parameters.
When heart rate variability is measured correlated to respiration, a respiration monitoring device such as a chest band may be used to measure respiration, and the difference between maximum heart rate and minimum heart rate within the time interval of one breath may be measured. When heart rate variability is measured without correlation to respiration, the difference between maximum heart rate and minimum heart rate within a period likely to be longer than the period of a typical breath can be measured.
Within this document, when we refer to “re-settling time” with respect to a parameter such as heart rate or vagal tone, it shall be assumed that we are referring to the time it takes the measured parameter to re-settle within a pre-determined tolerance of baseline level. Re-settling time may be thought of as inversely correlated with psychological or neurological resilience, meaning that a person with longer heart rate and vagal tone re-settling time may be said to be less psychologically or neurologically resilient. (Levine 1976, 1986), Porges 2011)
In this document, any difference between the re-settling time that might be evidenced in a person with unresolved trauma (compared to a person who has no unresolved trauma) may be referred to as autonomic dysregulation or stasis. There is a need for innovative technologies that can aid individuals in reducing or eliminating autonomic dysregulation. Thus, in the terminology of this document, a person with less autonomic dysregulation has more psychological or neurological resilience.
Most (if not all) trauma involves the experience of helplessness in the face of overwhelming circumstances. Examples in the animal kingdom include an animal being cornered with no route of escape, imminent capture by a predator, imminent or actual life-threatening injury, etc. In mammals, imminently life-threatening trauma often results in the most primitive part of the brain activating portions of the brain stem, medulla, hypothalamus, autonomic nervous system, and limbic system which serve to anesthetize the animal into a “seemingly dead” state, called the “immobility response”, or “tonic immobility (TI). For some animals (such as the opossum) which do not have much ability to fight off or escape from predators, the TI is the default method for surviving attacks from predators. When a predator chases or attacks a prey animal and the prey animal enters the TI state, the predator may lose interest. Some animals may also give off a foul odor during the TI state, thus making them less appealing as a meal for a predator.
If an animal in the wild survives a threatening (and potentially traumatic) circumstance in which it enters the TI state, when the animal comes out of the TI state, its body typically goes through a brief stage of trembling and shaking. The muscle actions of this shaking often mimic the muscle actions of successfully escaping from or fighting off the predator. Modern trauma theory points to these muscle actions as a key component of integrating trauma. When trauma is integrated, circumstances which trigger memory of the traumatic event will not produce an autonomic nervous system response that is experienced as disabling. Experiments show that accumulating integrated traumatic memories tends to make animals more resilient and more likely to survive challenging circumstances, while accumulating non-integrated traumatic memories tends to make animals less resilient and less likely to survive challenging circumstances.
For example, in one experiment, young chicks were divided into three groups. The first and second groups were held down, unable to move, until their bodies went into the TI state. The third group was held down and did not go into the TI state. The first group was allowed to come out of the TI state naturally, going through shaking as they came out of the TI state. The second group was prodded while in the TI state until they forcibly came out of the TI state.
The three groups were each then put in water and allowed to swim until they drowned. The first group (the group that had gone into and naturally come out of the TI state) swam by far the longest. The third group (the group that had not been traumatized) swam the second longest before drowning. The group that drowned the fastest was the second group (the group that had experienced the TI state but had not been allowed to naturally integrate the experience because they were prodded out of the TI state).
Many modern trauma researchers theorize that the reason that many people who have been through traumatic events (war, rape, auto accident, abuse by a spouse) become partly or largely disabled from living vibrant lives is because they never were able to process and integrate their trauma in a natural way. It has been shown that traditional “talk therapy” rarely enables a person to integrate past trauma. Modern trauma theory explains this deficiency of talk therapy by pointing out that in a traumatic circumstance, it is primarily the more primitive (implicit) memory system of the brain that is engaged. This type of memory system is orchestrated by the brain stem, hypothalamus, and the amygdala. Implicit memory is an exact (non-verbal, non symbolic) type of memory used for remembering muscle movements (such as the skill of riding a bicycle or playing the piano). This type of memory is orchestrated by the amygdala. On the other hand, explicit memory (language-accessible memory of events, conversations, etc.) is orchestrated by the hippocampus, which often becomes greatly inhibited and almost dysfunctional under traumatic circumstances.
The type of memory with which non-integrated traumatic experiences are stored is not accessed symbolically in a way that would enable a person to talk about it or describe it. However, these memories exist in the form of procedural memories which include body reactions and sensations—these include physiological symptoms for which people often seek medical attention; and which elude medical diagnosis. Such symptoms may include pain, muscle spasms, changes in blood circulation in various parts of the body and brain. These include mental impairment, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, gastrointestinal disorders, changes in endocrine system balance, allergies, and may even contribute to autoimmune diseases.
During a treatment session, there are a myriad of subtle clues that a highly skilled trauma therapist may read to gain insight into when traumatic memories are being accessed and processed. Clues that skilled trauma therapists may utilize include:                Respiration rate        Breath indicating relaxation (as observed by the pause between the end of an exhalation and the beginning of the next inhalation)        Breath indicating arousal (shorter, more shallow, upper chest breathing)        Heart rate (as observed by the pulsation of the external carotid artery at the neck)        Shifts in blood flow distribution (as observed by shifts of hand skin pallor from pale and bluish to redder, or the reverse)        Overall posture        Degree of eye-contact        Pupil dilation or constriction. Subtle changes in posture indicating impending collapse        Subtle changes in posture indicating readiness for action        Subtle changes in posture indicating readiness to fight or flee.        Hand and arm gestures (especially subconscious ones)        Changes in skin hue        Changes in tone and/or rhythm of voice (prosody)        Changes in speech rate        Tension in various muscles that may be visible to the therapist        Changes in speech patterns (pausing, phrases used, speaking in questions vs statements, etc.)        
The skills needed on the part of a therapist to consistently and meaningfully read the myriad of subtle body clues listed above may be difficult or impossible for some people to develop, and may be challenging for those who have developed them to manifest on a consistent basis. These same clues also indicate the presence and nature of a traumatic memory being accessed and/or indicate a likely path toward integrating the traumatic memory. Thus the number of therapists who exhibit a high rate of success in helping clients fully integrate past trauma remains relatively small, while the number of people partly or largely debilitated and unable to live full and vital lives due to the lingering effects of past trauma is ever-increasing. There is a pressing need for innovative technologies which can help people integrate past trauma to free people from partial disablement and the physical symptoms which may otherwise occur in the face of traumatic memories.
Many persons who have gone through significant unintegrated trauma regularly re-experience parts of the immobility response in their daily lives, and such experiences constitute an ever-increasing accumulation of unintegrated trauma, often accompanied by deep shame. Because of shame, limited financial resources, lack of access to a skilled therapist, or some combination of these factors, many such individuals do not seek or, eventually give up on seeking a therapist who might be able to help them. There is a need for innovative technologies which can help persons without access to a skilled trauma therapist.
When a person has been through a traumatic event that has not been integrated, that person typically perceives the daily situations he or she is in differently than a person without unintegrated trauma would perceive such situations. For example, persons with unintegrated trauma will often perceive situations as containing a significant element of danger or threat, where persons without such unintegrated trauma will perceive little or no danger or threat.
Skilled trauma therapists often begin their work with a patient by assessing the differences between how the patient perceives a situation and how a typical person without unintegrated trauma perceives such a situation. Looked at from a different perspective, the skilled trauma therapist often begins by assessing a patient to determine what course of therapy would be best suited to the unintegrated trauma the patient carries.
The time needed to treat different types of unintegrated trauma can be quite varied. It is, for instance, generally agreed among trauma therapists that trauma such as sexual abuse that was experienced in formative years can require significantly more therapeutic work to integrate than the trauma of (for instance) a recently experienced car accident or rape. There is a need for innovative technologies that facilitate the assessment of patients prior to a course of trauma treatment, so as to usefully inform the choice of therapeutic techniques, and so as to facilitate the grouping of persons likely to benefit from similar exercises and likely to benefit from each other's progress in group therapy.